SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am trying to put this in order because the timeline is part of what has made it so hard to process.

In September 2025 the truth first came out that my husband went to prostitutes years ago and had also had an emotional affair with a co worker and that was devastating enough.

Then in February 2026 bank statements I received after a data request clarified more of the timeline and I found out that the Amsterdam stag weekend happened just days after we had come back from a couples holiday.

It was 24 years ago but I only know the fuller truth now so for him it may feel old but for me it is new.

It was six prostitutes - four in the UK and then two in Amsterdam. There was also the emotional affair with a co worker on top of this so it is not one isolated thing I am trying to process.

I also remember going to the doctor for STI issues and he denied everything. I was trying to understand what was happening to my own body while he knew there had been risk and still let me believe there was nothing to know.

That is what feels so violating. Not just the sex but the money, the health risk, the denial and the years of me not being given the truth or the choice I deserved.

What I cannot get my head around is how he compartmentalised it for years - how he came home and carried on as though nothing had happened. How he went on to have children with me, celebrate birthdays and anniversaries with me and live a whole family life while knowing what he had done and what he had kept from me.

How do you process something that happened decades ago when your body and mind are reacting to it as if it has just happened?

Gently, accept that this is happening to you now even though your H did it then.

My reco is to figure out what sort of support do you want from your H, and ask for it. Figure out your boundaries. Figure out if you want to be married to him. If you don't, figure out what he can do to become the person you want to spend your life with, and ask him to makes those changes. See yourself living alone, without him.

You've got the same options that that any JFO BS has. The choice isn't easy, but you have the power to choose.

Feel your feelings - all of them - the anger, grief, fear, shame, love, etc. Get help from a good IC if you want it. Maybe get help from a good IC even if you don't want it.

I know recovering from infidelity is a terrible task. If you can, though, the task can be reframed. The task involves dealing with awful feelings, but it's an opportunity to reset your life to something closer - maybe very much closer - to the life you want.

Much easier said than done, I know - but you have the power, BIP. There's a whole world out there, and a lot of it is joyful.

sisoon thank you

accept that this is happening to you now even though your H did it then.

That is exactly it - for him it may be old and compartmentalised but for me the fuller truth and the changed timeline are happening now so my body and mind are reacting now.

I think you are right that I need to work out what support I actually need from him and what my boundaries are rather than only trying to understand how he could do it and hide it for so long.

Whilst I am not ready to make a final decision today but I do understand what you mean about seeing myself living alone and remembering that I have choices as part of the trauma is feeling as though choices were taken away from me for years.

Thank you for reminding me that I still have power now...

Problem is that the nervous system doesn’t understand the concept of time.

It exists to keep us alive and safe from traumatic experiences.

The fire that burned you when you were 3 years old is still vividly painful in your nerve system. The spicy treat that made you cry when you were 6 is still burning your tongue today…

Unless you decided you wanted to learn how to eat spicy food, so you put in the work and your nerve system learned that what was a threat when you were 6 is no longer today.

And those are silly, minor threats not really traumatic experiences. The work to retrain your nervous system is not too hard.

If you don’t address those records of your life, they will still be there vivid and painful until the day you die.

So how about a trauma so hard that shakes your entire reality and the pillars of your existence, so painful that you feel collapsing and unable to breath, that makes you feel life is over or destroyed and you will never recover again.

That kind of trauma requires a lot of work to overcome in our nervous system. Years possibly. Requires you to build a lot of stuff around to make you feel better that, no matter how awful and painful it was, now you know and are safe, because you can prevent it from happening again or getting to you, you put in the work right?

And then another just found out that undermines your work and takes out the stability of the patch you built.

You will have to once again review it all to make sure that missing bit wasn’t actually making your entire work a house of cards.

Back to square one (almost).

That’s why time doesn’t matter and dishonesty, trickle truths and management rather than empathy and accountability is just another betrayal from your betrayer.

For the body and mind this is now, no matter if ages has passed.

Because of that, it is now.

How my nervous system processes that stuff now is through acceptance.

I accepted that when you cross the line you become worthless and horrible.

You choose to become that, you choose evil. That’s the thing I expect from you now.

No matter how little or gross the shit you did is, it’s all the same.

So I wouldn’t flinch finding out that you are sacrificing babies in a rave party to scam terminally ills elders out of their money selling them baby burgers and kicking puppies at the petting zoo.

I expect you to be like that.

You can go low, so I won’t be surprised you dug even lower.

You showed me clearly where you stand, what your place is.

That makes it hard for you to prove you are changed, that’s a lifelong marking, you picked the gross tattoo on your face, might try to delete it and that’s commendable, but I will always remember that outline so I’d you popanother, no surprise, is exactly what I expected from you.

I can judge the good you do today and admire it if you are consistent.

However our nerve system files betrayal as a life sentence we get for a crime that we did not commit.

Fine.we have to live with that.

So the cheater has a life sentence for the crime they did commit.

It’s only fair.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 4:54 PM, Saturday, June 13th]

BackfromtheStorm thank you

For the body and mind this is now, no matter if ages has passed. Because of that, it is now.

This is exactly what I am trying to process as the events may have happened decades ago but the fuller truth and the changed timeline landed now so my body is reacting now. I also understand what you mean about new information undermining the work already done as September was one version of the truth and then February changed the picture again when the bank statements clarified the Amsterdam timing which is why it feels so destabilising as it is not only old betrayal - it is new reality. Thank you for helping me put words to that....